In a process of manufacturing IC chips, cuttable members are formed in a chip so that the characteristics of the elements (e.g. resistances and capacitances) involved in the IC chip can be adjusted, or so that logical states of logic circuits can be determined by selectively cutting some of the cuttable members by a laser for example.
For example, in an IC chip provided with cuttable members in the form of fuses, some of them are fused or cut open so as to provide the components of the IC chip with required characteristics and the logical circuits with required logical states based on the data measured in a later inspection process.
The IC chip thus formed is bonded on a substrate or another IC chip to form a semiconductor device.
Unfortunately, however, the required characteristics thus obtained and/or the logical states thus determined may be lost due to short-circuiting of the cut portions by moisture and/or rust during storage, and dust during bonding of the chip on the substrate.
An IC chip is often bonded on a substrate or another IC chip using bumps (which are protruding electrodes formed for electric connections) and an anisotropic conductive film (ACF). In this approach, the ACF is placed between the IC chip and the substrate, and they are pressed together. However, fused portion can be undesirably short-circuited by conductive particles e.g. gold particles contained in the ACF.
If such short-circuiting of the cut portion(s) takes place, required characteristics of the components or logical states of the logical circuits will be lost.
Further, such unfavorable conditions can be detected in many cases only after the IC chip is bonded on the substrate or another IC chip, that is, only after the semiconductor device is completed. Hence, the above mentioned problem has been a source of manufacturing defective semiconductor devices.